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Security guard says loaded, stolen gun in the back of his Jeep wasn't his

A Stoughton man was ordered held in lieu of $30,000 bail after prosecutors say police found a loaded gun in the back seat of his SUV early Tuesday after he was stopped near Morton and Norfolk streets in Mattapan for driving with an expired license.

Darryl Holloway, 26, was charged with illegal possession of a firearm and ammunition and faces additional penalties because of his record as an armed career criminal.

Assistant District Attorney Michael DiStefano told Dorchester District Court Judge James Coffee said officers on routine patrol ran his plate around 2 a.m. on Tuesday and decided to pull him over when his license came back as expired.

DiStefano said Holloway kept driving for another half mile - and swerved several times - before coming to a stop. After ordering him out of the car, they found the gun - which later investigation showed had been reported stolen from Maine.

DiStefano asked for bail of $75,000.

Holloway's lawyer, Daniel DiLorati, said Holloway had a learner's permit, but conceded that, at 2 a.m., he was out driving when he shouldn't have been, since the permit only let him drive between 6 a.m. and 6 p.m.

And he conceded that Holloway has a record. But he said Holloway had turned his life around: He'd gotten married last month and has worked as a security guard for a year and a half, he said.

And as a security guard, he said, he wouldn't be messing with illegal guns. He said Holloway had lent his Jeep to "two or three friends" a couple days earlier and argued one of them might have left the gun under a mat in the back seat.